Political Dog 101https://politicaldog101.com
Politics, News, Comments & Other Good Stuff....Mon, 19 Nov 2018 21:44:46 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.814963050Democrats look to expand their voter base in the Sunbelt…https://politicaldog101.com/2018/11/democrats-look-to-expand-their-voter-base-in-the-sunbelt/
https://politicaldog101.com/2018/11/democrats-look-to-expand-their-voter-base-in-the-sunbelt/#respondMon, 19 Nov 2018 18:50:32 +0000http://politicaldog101.com/?p=3627While they seem to have developed trouble in Ohio and Florida?

They have made gains in the Red / Republican Sunbelt region….

Democrats made major gains across the Sunbelt in the midterm elections, changing the political landscape in states like Arizona and Nevada ahead of the 2020 elections.

The party netted many of those gains by winning over Republicans in the suburbs and aggressively courting minority voters, a coalition that could spell trouble in Southwestern states for President Trump‘s reelection prospects and Republicans protecting their Senate majority.

In Arizona, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in more than three decades in a state that Trump narrowly won in 2016, while the party also gained a majority of the state’s congressional delegation.

In Nevada, Democrats tightened their grip on the purple state by picking up a Senate seat, a handful of statewide races and the governor’s mansion for the first time since 1994.

Meanwhile, Democrats made significant House gains in the GOP strongholds of Texas and Southern California.

For strategists, the wins reflect a widening rural-suburban divide where growing populations of college-educated voters, particularly in the suburbs, are rejecting Trump to help buoy Democrats.

“The changing demography and growth in urbanization … creates a huge barrier between the message Trump’s putting out there and what those voters want,” said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas…..

Democrat Beto O’Rourke just lost the race for US Senator from Texas ….

LOST…

From media reports you’d never know it….

It’s almost like some people are viewing O’Rourke’s loss like a tune-up….

Yes….For those of us around in the late 1960’s this a guy who could remind us of a young Jack and Robert Kennedy….

And?

Yes….He’s a youngish Democrat….

But?

Would that be enough?

Sparked by his narrow defeat in a Texas Senate race, Beto O’Rourke is scrambling the 2020 presidential primary field, freezing Democratic donors and potential campaign staffers in place as they await word of his plans.

Even prior to O’Rourke’s meteoric rise, many Democratic fundraisers had approached the large number of 2020 contenders with apprehension, fearful of committing early to one candidate. But the prospect of a presidential bid by O’Rourke, whose charismatic Senate candidacy captured the party’s imagination, has suddenly rewired the race.

O’Rourke — who raised a stunning $38 million in the third quarter of his race — is widely considered capable of raising millions of dollars quickly, according to interviews with multiple Democratic money bundlers and strategists, catapulting him into the upper echelons of the 2020 campaign.

Mikal Watts, a San Antonio-based lawyer and major Democratic money bundler, said several donors and political operatives in Iowa, after hearing from other potential candidates in recent days, have called to ask if O’Rourke is running, a sign of his impact in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

“They’re not wanting to sign on to other presidential campaigns until they know whether Beto is going,” Watts said. “And if Beto is running, what good progressive Democrat wouldn’t want to work for Beto O’Rourke?”

He said, “I can tell you that there has not been this kind of level of electric excitement about a candidate since” Barack Obama ran in 2008.

O’Rourke raised more than $70 million in total in his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, mostly from small donors in a race that captured national attention. Though he fell short — losing 51 percent to 48 percent — his closer-than-expected performance in the largest red state on the map was credited with lifting at least two Democrats to victory over House Republican incumbents.

A POLITICO/Morning Consult presidential primary poll last week put O’Rourke in third place among Democratic voters, behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

“He’s game changing,” said Robert Wolf, an investment banker who helped raise Wall Street money for Obama in 2008 and 2012. “If he decides to run, he will be in the top five. You can’t deny the electricity and excitement around the guy.”….

President Donald Trump walks with FEMA Administrator Brock Long, left, as he visits a neighborhood impacted by the Wolsey Fire, in Malibu, California.

Evan Vucci/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Donald Trump does not have much sympathy or patience for those who have suffered from a natural disaster….

Over the last almost two years he has been indifferent , or places the blame all over the place instead of offering comfort….

His visit to the latest is no different….

President Donald Trump visited California this weekend to tour areas devastated by wildfires that burned out of control across the state and once again blamed forest management for the fires spreading so quickly. The president went to a neighborhood in Paradise, California, as well as parts of Malibu.

As the fires burned last week, Trump tweeted his initial response, blaming forest management: “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

This comment drew backlash from many, including Brian K. Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters, who told CNN: “The President’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines.”

But Trump reiterated his ill-conceived comments in California on Saturday. “We will be talking about forest management,” he said. “I’ve been saying that for a long time. It should have been a lot different situation.” He also mentioned Finland, saying that they “spend a lot of time on raking” leaves and “cleaning and doing things” to prevent forest fires…..

One would assume that the Justice Dept. lawyers carrying the water for Trump’s hard line against Jim Acosta, and the idea that news reporters should be allowed to ask an American President ‘harder’ questions KNOW that they are treading on thin ice….

While the Federal judge that resorted Acosta’s accessibility to the nation’s White House did NOT address the basic issue of media/press ‘right’ to ask questions in a public forum in a PUBLIC building?

I, for one, cannot see the Trump point of view prevailing…..

I’m NOT a lawyer….

I KNOW there is no law that says a President MUST allow reporter’s to even set foot in the White House Press room….(Trump orginally tried to move the whole operation out of the White House, but that didn’t work)….

But a situation where an woman aide tried to take a mic out of the hand of a male reporter is NO excuse to institute a way for an American President to ban media access to reporters that might ask questions one might not want to hear….THAT IS what this is ALL.. about folks…Donald Trump HAS admitted he is out to control the media….’He can’t handle the truth’….so he’ll just try to make in disappear, at least when he’s around….

Despite a setback in court last week, the White House is pushing forward with efforts to strip a CNN reporter of his press credential in what could shape up to be a landmark First Amendment case over how and why the government can ban reporters from government buildings.

Lawyers for Jim Acosta, the network’s chief White House correspondent, said in a court filing on Monday they had received a letter last week indicating that the Trump administration was still seeking to take away his credential after a testy exchange with the president in a news conference earlier this month.

“Your behavior at the November 7 press conference violated the basic standards governing such events and is, in our preliminary judgement, sufficient factual basis to revoke your hard pass,” White House communications director Bill Shine and press secretary Sarah Sanders wrote in a letter to Mr. Acosta that was included in Monday’s court filing.

Last week, a U.S. district court judge issued an emergency order that the White House restore Mr. Acosta’s press badge, which it had taken from him shortly after the news conference. Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, framed his decision on narrow procedural grounds, however—saying that the White House had not given Mr. Acosta due process over the suspension of his press pass and sidestepping other questions about the rights of the press….

Republicans have gain just a handful more of US Senator’s for their party…

And Democrats OVERperformed across the board having fairly close races in places that Republicans should have blown Democrats out…

They will STILL have to deal with Democrats on certain issues in the Senate and they will have to work with Pelosi led Democrats in the House to get anything done…

The Trump party hold on Congress is over….

What the “split decision” narrative sometimes misses is just how well Democrats performed in the Senate despite having to defend more seats than Republicans1 — and in territory that was largely more favorable to the GOP.

Much of this is overshadowed because Democrats did lose Senate seats. But if we look at a state’s partisan lean2 and the vote share margin in each Senate race, we see Democrats managed to outperform how their states leaned politically in almost every single race — including in the 10 states with a Democratic incumbent that President Trump won in 2016.

Some of what we’re seeing here is probably related to the overall Democratic-leaning national environment — the popular House vote margin currently sits at D+7. But in 27 of the 33 Senate races included in the chart,3 Democratic candidates outperformed the partisan leans of their states. And there were four contests where Democratic incumbents fared 20 points or better than their state’s political baseline — and three of them won. This helped Democrats hold onto seats in two heavily Republican states — West Virginia and Montana — and easily win one seat in a likely 2020 battleground —Minnesota…

President Trump dismisses retired Adm. William McRaven, the overseer of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, as a “Hillary Clinton backer” and criticizes the military for having not killed bin Laden sooner https://cnn.it/2ToT5RJ

twitter…

Men and Women who have voted for this guy , or support him?

PLEASE?

Re-read the above twitter tweet…

]]>https://politicaldog101.com/2018/11/donald-trump-the-commander-in-chief/feed/03616The US Department of Defense is going silent?….https://politicaldog101.com/2018/11/the-us-department-of-defense-is-going-silent/
https://politicaldog101.com/2018/11/the-us-department-of-defense-is-going-silent/#respondMon, 19 Nov 2018 00:59:13 +0000http://politicaldog101.com/?p=3615Defense One has reported that the US Military is quietly cutting back releasing information to the media, Congress and the public these days…

At a time of rampant executive branch corruption and large increases in defense spending, Americans are rightly concerned about the need for governmental transparency. People deserve to know how their money is being used, and what life-or-death decisions the Pentagon bureaucracy is making in their names. As President Trump asks for more defense dollars and relies more than ever on the military to conduct the country’s business, his administration should be taking commensurate steps to increase openness and strengthen accountability to the public.

Instead, the Defense Department under this administration has been doing the exact opposite. Its current leaders declared war on transparency in their earliest days on the job. On issue after issue, they have made conspicuous decisions to roll back transparency and public accountability precisely when we need it most.

The message from the top has been to withhold information from Congress, the public, and the press, even as President Trump has simultaneously taken inappropriate steps to politicize the military. Certainly, we must always be mindful of the need to protect sensitive national security information, and we have long invested in crucial efforts—such as the classification system—in order to safeguard it. But the Trump administration’s actions have gone far beyond the proper balance, in ways that do not serve the public interest.

To take just a few examples, the administration has regularly sought to prevent DoD officials from testifying before Congress on major issues—such as the annual defense budget request—when hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. It aggressively curtailed once-standard interactions between DoD leadership and the press, only to partially reinstate them after a prolonged outcry. Instead of providing our servicemembers, the American public, and Congress with candid assessments of military readiness challenges and transparency about DoD’s plans to address them, DoD leaders have issued edicts chilling such discussions…

One COULD assume that Donald Trump’s lawyers have tried to scrub ‘his’ written answers in way that will fit what they think others have told the Special Counsel’s FBI agents and lawyers….

We also are pretty much sure that the current President of the United States, one Donald J. Trump , more often then NOT makes up HIS view or reality that mostly has NOTHING to do with the truth….

That maybe go food for the media, that LOVES any bright shiny object,,,,,

But?

NOT telling the truth to the Mueller people, of a Federal Grand Jury is serious stuff and for just about ANYBODY would end up having the government charge you with a crime…..(Mueller’s people already KNOW just about everything they need to know from co-operating witnesses that used be inside Trump people)

Having Trump NOT wanting to testify isn’t about a President doing so….

Bill Clinton already went down that road….

Richard Nixon ended up quitting for doing what Donald Trump wants to do, which is ,firing the Special Prosecutor ….

This seems more like a guy who’s scared….

A question might be…. Would Mueller & Co. go to the courts to force Trump to come in and sit down for some questions?

“Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace says he doesn’t think there’s a chance President Trump will sit for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller.

Wallace made the comments Friday while appearing on Shepard Smith’s Fox program to preview his sit-down with the president, which is set to air Sunday.

While Wallace declined to open up about certain parts of the interview, he noted that he asked Trump if there was a chance he’d sit for an interview with Mueller as part of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s election interference.

“I will say this,” Wallace remarked. “I don’t think there’s very much chance that he is ever going to sit for an interview with Mueller.”

Wallace said that Trump was very critical of Mueller’s investigation during the interview….